DWB #47:
Your Lebanese friend has a humorously unrealistic idea about the capabilities and reach of Arab, Iranian and Pakistani militaries.
No significant immediate or short term retaliation against Israel is likely following a large scale Israeli nuclear attack on Iran unless Israel is foolish enough to wait at least a few more years while Iran develops and tests nuclear warheads for their ballistic missiles.
At this moment, Iranian medium range ballistic missiles (MRBM) topped with chemical weapons are the only retaliatory threat Israel need seriously worry about in the “sort of” short term. Even those MRBMs, assuming they were launch ready, and if they were launched immediately following a series of mushroom clouds, would take several minutes to reach Israel.
In the aftermath of multiple nuclear explosions that would likely eliminate most of Iran’s military and political leadership, it is doubtful anyone would remain who could authorize retaliation using MRBMs, even if any missiles survived the bombardment in operating condition. Independent thoughts and action are not widely encouraged among mid and low level officers in much of Iran’s military.
Iranian MRBMs shouldn’t be confused with the much more reliable ICBMs utilized by Russian, France, the U.K, and the U.S.
Iran does not have dozens of missiles fully fueled, warheads loaded with chemical weapons, sitting on launch pads or in hardened silos, continually manned by vigilant launch officers possessed of itchy trigger fingers with standing orders to launch against predetermined targets when the order is given.
Pakistan, on the other hand does have a creditable nuclear deterrence. It is focused entirely on India. Pakistan’s forces are tailored to eliminate perceived Indian military threats and to make India’s cost of unrestricted war with Pakistan unpalatable to the Indian government.
It is highly doubtful that Pakistan’s current government would expend any of their limited number of weapons against an opponent who would then respond with overwhelming force. This also raises the question of delivery. Israel is not within range of any Pakistani missile designed to accommodate nuclear warheads. Pakistani fighter/bomber aircraft could theoretically deliver such a strike, but they lack the refueling aircraft necessary to reach Israel. They could conceivably refuel in Iran, but that would require them to cross a great deal of controlled and probably hostile airspace and penetrate Israeli airspace which is highly controlled and under constant surveillance by many RADARs.
The Syrian, Egyptian, Jordanian, and Saudi militaries combined couldn’t defeat Israel with conventional forces. Turkey is a marginal Israeli ally and is unlikely to take action on behalf of a Shiite, terrorist supporting regime anyway.
What then is the source of this overwhelming retributive strike that will wipe Israel off the map?
Are you sure your Lebanese friend isn’t really a Palestinian expatriate? He sure seems to have drunk the Hezb’Allah cool aid!
